CHAPTER HI. 



THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC TIMES. 



They buried the dark chief — they freed 

 Beside the grave his battle steed ; 

 And swift an arrow cleaved its way 

 To his stern heart ! One piercing neigh 

 Arose, — and on the dead man's plain 

 The rider grasps his steed again. 



Longfellow, The Minnisink. 



Let us now return to Equus cahallus. There is evidence 

 that in the later Palaeolithic time two varieties at least existed 

 in western Europe. Owen held that the ossiferous caves and 

 post-Pliocene deposits of Europe indicate two species, of which 

 one {Equus cahallus) was as large as a middle-sized horse of the 

 present day, whilst the other {E. plicidens) was about the size 

 of a large donkey, but differing from the first-mentioned as well 

 as from the modern horse in the more complex foliation of the 

 enamel on its molar teeth, and he held that the fossil horse had 

 a larger head than the domesticated race. On the other hand, 

 Cuvier and others maintained that no difference can be detected 

 between the fossil horses of the Quaternary times and Equus 

 cahallus save such as can be explained by the difference in size 

 of the animals compared. We have seen that the Pleistocene 

 beds of Essex yield bones and teeth of a large-headed, heavily- 

 built horse, which probably sometimes measured fully 14 hands, 

 whilst from the ' Elephant bed ' at Brighton portions of a 

 slender-limbed horse have been obtained. It is not improbable 

 that at the same period horses of a diminutive size inhabited 



